Does anyone have any suggestions on removing spammy links?
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The idea is the overwhelming majority of links to your site should be earned. People should want to link to your site. If a large percentage of the links to your site are self-created then I have two suggestions:
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review your website. Consider all aspects which may affect the user experience.
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review your content. Is it authoritative? Is it accurate? Is it compelling? etc.
Let's take this Q&A post as an example. SEOmoz has a great site. It is a custom built site. There are many aspects of the site which help offer a great user experience. It is still a work-in-progress, but hopefully some of the $18 million they recently received will be set aside for site improvements
Also look at the content of this article. It seems very helpful to many people based on the responses received. This Q&A is relevant to the site, it's a current topic, etc. If you can generate great content on your site, then you should earn links naturally.
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Exactly..when reviewing our site about a keynote speaker a few years ago we realized we didnt have much info that was helpful to people hiring a keynote speaker..so we added that..our own ideas on the subject..probably why we passed through the last Google updates so well. We have tons of original helpful content..however; I've learned we have to be better than that. There is soooo much our company has to offer that we need to get out there for our industry. We have been at the top 1% of it for awhile now in terms of dollars, experience etc. So once again, its time to revisit, refine, etc. but what this thread is about is removing links! And thats what i want to talk about here
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Ryan, I am 100% agreed with you, man if I look into competitor's links they are all or full of manipulated links. they are still there. I don't know why
I am agreed with you on the ".to create amazing content which others find useful / helpful / amazing then let the world know about it. If you wish to build more links, then embed yourself as a member of the community related to the site's niche and sparingly mention the site."and this is the best long term planning for a site.
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Rayan i have just found one of my clients has the same problem, I am glad of your previous expirence as i dont want to have to go thought such a long process.
Did you investigate if blocking those links by making the server drop the request will work. This seems to be a easier way if posible?
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Did you investigate if blocking those links by making the server drop the request will work. This seems to be a easier way if posible?
Alan, I had not investigated blocking server links. Anything is possible but after thinking about the process, it does not seem reasonable to me that Google would remove a penalty based on the block. Some challenges:
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How could Google see the block exists?
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Even if the block does exist, why would Google care? The types of links Google is penalizing are not likely to receive any traffic, which is why they are being penalized. If the links actually received traffic, Google would not have any problem with the links.
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After working through a few of these penalties I really feel Google is trying to achieve one of two goals. Either to punish webmasters who have violated their policies, or to clean up the web. Blocking the links does not achieve either goal.
With the above noted, it is just my intuition and logic. I have been mistaken before. Nothing beats testing and experience!
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Just worth a follow up, there are now multiple tools and services that help with this. I wont link to them because I own one of them, but just search google for either bad link removal tool or bad link removal services to find a bevy of companies assisting in the process.
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a) How did you contact Google, was it purely through reconsideration requests?
b) How did they respond back to you, was it whoever's email was linked to the domain in Google Webmaster Tools?
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During my initial case of working on this type of penalty in 2011, the first couple contacts were through Reconsideration Requests. After that the contacts were e-mail exchanges. They e-mailed me directly.
There seems to be a bandwagon of "Google is bad / evil / [insert adjective]". In my experience if you are sincere and put forth the proper effort, they will do what they can to help. In the overwhelming majority of cases I find people are not sincere. They are not sorry they cheated the system, they are sorry they got caught. They are not putting forth the proper effort, they are putting forth the minimum effort. When this happens, the relationship becomes adversarial.
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Hey Ryan,
Thanks so much for your detailed analysis, this confirms the gameplan we had to remove thousands of links to our site. We ended up contacting about 800 webmasters who owned ~2,500 domains total with spammy links to our domains, and we had about a 6.5% response rate.
About 42 site owners responded and removed their links easily. Then there were about 10 who responded that they would take down the links for a fee. We've paid 8 website owners for a total of about $135 but there are three more that own a ton of domains and they want another $410 total for about 75 links.
We are trying not to spend that much on link removal, do you think if we document this and send it to Google they will understand the high cost that we don't want to pay, or will they just tell us that we have to pay this off if we want the manual penalty removed?
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Google does not require you to give in to blackmail. With that said, I completely agree with your approach. Paying $10 to remove all the spammy links from a domain with numerous links is an easy fix, and can help with Penguin and future updates as well. This opinion may not be popular, but in the business world we need to value our time as well.
For the sites which attempt to charge larger fees, I would recommend replying with the following...."We are attempting to remove links from a large number of domains. We are unable to afford the thousands of dollars it would require to pay site owners to remove links. We would request that you please voluntarily remove the link as a courtesy. You may also wish to consider that providing a followed link to a penalized site may cause your site to be penalized. Instead of removing the link perhaps you would be willing to change it to a "nofollow" link."
Best of luck!
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Thanks so much Ryan, I had a hunch that we should use common sense on this one. I will definitely try the nofollow approach with the website owners who are not cooperating, and I'll respond back in here with an update here with the results for the benefit of others.
Thanks again!
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This is exactly what happened to us. We have removed over 600K links so far but still not enough for google. We are out of luck now because we cannot get any more links removed!
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Here is an update of my efforts so far to find out out what happened and how to fix two of my banned money sites. I used various tools, some public and some private to find a list of the following:
**Some notes: **
- My sites that were heavily linked were penalized at the same time. My sites that were not linked together as much were not.
- The entire site was not penalized, only the very important key phrases, the type one might spend money on.
**I ran tools to find: **
- Banned links
- Not indexed links
- Use of keyword anchor text as a percentage of overall anchor text
After I "married" those lists..I began a process of link removal request especially for the overuse of the same three keyphrases which resulted, frankly, from not monitoring the efforts of one of one of subcontracted partners.
I created different link removal email request templates for the different kind of links after a few really angry replys. The email templates were for:
- Blog comments
- Private article sites
- Mass release articles sites
- Regular old links
Note: I sorted these by IP. When i found tons of links for the same IP I often offered money to rid myself of the links.
Two months later I have had 175 of about 500 bad links removed. I have not had the penalty lifted nor have i submitted it to Google. I dont plan to. Some mistakes were made, I am making huge efforts to take away the bad (these sites are from 1996 to 2008 .. SO..somethings can no be undone.
My current strategy is to make more good to dilute the bad. Like creative cooking.
Also, ofcourse I have started a new dish for dinner that might end up being what is served. No telling how long the others have to sit on the stove before its eatable
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I meant to use the word "penalized" not banned
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You are not out of luck. In my experience Google will always remove a manual penalty IF you clearly demonstrate a solid, good faith effort on your part. At a high level these are the requirements:
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admit your mistakes and how they were made. Be completely transparent and do not attempt to hide anything.
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Commit to following all Google Guidelines going forward.
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Gather a comprehensive list of all known links to your site. Simply using Google's list from WMT is not enough. Neither is using WMT + OSE or any one tool. Use several tools together. What has consistently worked for me is WMT, OSE, AHREFs, Raven and SEMrush combined. Many site owners and SEO's fail here by not compiling a comprehensive list.
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Every link/domain on the list needs to be evaluated. All manipulative links need to be identified. You need to be certain all remaining links fully comply with Google's Guidelines. Many site owners and SEOs fail here due to wanting to save links.
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Every domain which provides a manipulative link needs to be contacted. All aspects of the contact need to be thoroughly documented. A copy of the actual e-mail sent, the date it was sent, the response, etc. must be maintained. Letters should be sent via three methods: the WHOIS e-mail address (including the private addresses), the e-mail address on the site, the contact form on the site. Not all methods will be available on all sites, but the overwhelming majority of sites will have at least one if not all methods available.
A document needs to be created (a spreadsheet works great) listing all the URLs, links to the letters sent, the responses, etc. If you can demonstrate to Google you sincerely performed every reasonable task to have the links removed, they will "partially" lift the manual penalty. In my experience that means the penalty will be removed but any manipulative links you were unable to remove would be devalued.
You should always be able to have a manual penalty lifted, but it requires an exceptional amount of effort.
@Ginger, you are correct in that most penalties will address the specific pages which were the target of manipulative links. It sounds like you have put forth an incredible amount of effort. I hope you might pursue having the penalty lifted.
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Thank you for the reply Ginger. That's a good strategy.
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Thanks for the reply Ryan.
I heard and read exactly the same response from a lot of people in SEO. I respect their experience as well as yours but you guys are so Google-blind.
I have sent several emails to Google through the reconsideration request. I explained clearly what exactly happened and how those links got there, why our unique content all of a sudden spread to all over the web but they didn't even listen to. In these emails, I have included reports for the links that we have been able to remove, and also email responses from the websmasters who don't want to remove the links. There were a lot of proofs on those emails. If I explain situation to 10 different person, I'm 100% confident that 10 will say "this is not our fault." But Google didn't even care.
It wasn't our mistake so I'm not gonna admit it. We are always commited to follow Google Guidelines and we will be but that doesn't solve the issue. We lost almost 80% off all our traffic since 2011 and it's still going down. Imagine how hard this is for an ecommerce store.
Anyways, I was just looking to find some success stories around the same issue but never heard or seen one. So removing links doesn't really work or does it?
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I respect their experience as well as yours but you guys are so Google-blind.
When I submit a Reconsideration Request for manipulative links to Google, the response I receive back is as follows:
Hello Ryan,
Thank you for your follow up email and all of the information provided. The
documentation you provided was very helpful in processing and understanding
this case.After re-evaluating your site’s backlinks we are able to partially revoke a
manual action.The response goes on to explain how the inorganic links which were not removed will be devalued. Shortly after receiving the above response, the site begins ranking normally again. It is important to note that "normally" does not mean it will rank where it did before the penalty. It depends on how many links were removed which affected the particular query, the competition, etc.
So if I am "blind" by Google, well, it's simple for me. They outlined a specific process, I "blindly" follow that process, and they remove the penalty. I am happy, Google is happy, and most importantly the client is happy.
MOST site owners and SEOs do not follow the process, so most do not achieve the results. You are likely fighting Google, not following the process, so you will continue to be unhappy with the results.
"It wasn't our mistake so I'm not gonna admit it." Really? It requires a lot of humility to resolve this issue. When you say "it was not our mistake", that is not true in most cases. Usually the site owner, or an agent of the site owner (employee, web developer, "SEO", link builder, etc) caused at least some if not most of the manipulative links to be created. If you recently purchased the site then you would want to explain that to Google and provide evidence of your statement.
In my experience Google does care, they do listen, and they are actually helpful with the penalty removal process. I will admit most people will share your experience, not mine.
Anyways, I was just looking to find some success stories around the same issue but never heard or seen one. So removing links doesn't really work or does it?
I can guarantee removing links does work. In fact, I guarantee success for clients. It's a sure thing. You remove the manipulative links, follow Google's process and the penalty goes away.
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""It wasn't our mistake so I'm not gonna admit it." Really? It requires a lot of humility to resolve this issue. When you say "it was not our mistake", that is not true in most cases. Usually the site owner, or an agent of the site owner (employee, web developer, "SEO", link builder, etc) caused at least some if not most of the manipulative links to be created. If you recently purchased the site then you would want to explain that to Google and provide evidence of your statement. "
You're just judging me without listening what really happened.
Thanks again for your reply.
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I have carefully read all of your responses in this Q&A. You seem to feel that both Google and I are not listening because we are not responding in the manner you desire. Just because I do not agree with you does not mean I did not read or understand what you shared.
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